58 
BLACK -BELLIED FLY CATCIIER. 
a travel's les arbres pour se saisir des mouches qu’il 
poursuit sans cesse.) Our author mentions, that 
out of one hundred and four male birds which he 
shot, the tails of only fourteen were perfect. 
Returning to the species before us, we may add to 
the specific distinction already given, the following 
general description of the plumage. The head, like 
the generality of the other species, is ornamented 
with an incumbent crest, the feathers of which 
gradually lengthen as they approach the nape, where 
it terminates in a semicircular form : the whole of 
the head, neck, throat, and breast, are deep black, 
strongly glossed with steel-blue. This gloss, in the 
young bird, gradually disappears beyond the breast, 
where the colour becomes of a deep grey; but in 
the full plumaged male, all the under parts are like 
the breast. The under tail-covers are rufous, as 
deep in colour as the tail itself ; this is one of the 
peculiar specific distinctions of the species. The 
whole of the upper plumage of the bod)’, beyond 
the neck, is uniformly of that bright rufous so pre- 
valent in this genus; this colour extends to that 
half of the wings which is nearest the body, the 
outer half being entirely black : these two colours 
are divided by a line of pure white, which margins 
the feathers, over which — as it were — it passes, 
would socm to imply that these birds pursue their prey from 
place to place, and not, like ordinary flycatchers, by taking up 
a fixed station and merely darting upon such flies as come 
within the range of a dart or spring. This is a very important 
question, and deserves the close attention of the African or- 
nithologist. 
